Ellucian has made updates to their Colleague software that you should be aware of.
Software Updates
- Colleague Self-Service 3.x and Colleague Web API 2.x have been released.
- Colleague Self-Service 2.x and Colleague Web API 1.x have been placed on maintenance support until June 2025. Definition of maintenance support is located below.
- These are major version changes because Ellucian switched from using .NET Framework 4.7.2 to .NET 6.
- End users will not notice any changes.
- The last full release of Colleague Self-Service 2.x and Colleague Web API 1.x occurred on June 22, 2023. No new functionality will be added to these releases (only P1 and regulatory per maintenance support).
- The release of SS 3.x and API 2.x occurred on September 14, 2023. It upgraded the architecture to .NET 6 and resolved a few bugs, but there wasn’t any new functionality released.
- The next versions of SS and API, 3.1 and 2.1 respectively, are scheduled to come out around mid-December and will contain bug fixes along with new functionality for SS General and Proxy, Colleague Finance, Financial Aid Self-Service, Human Resources, Student Finance, Student, and Student Planning.
- Schools should consider upgrading (those who like to keep up to date) or at least start planning for the upgrade.
- Customization is the main thing that will make the upgrades a challenge. Complex customizations remain complex. Simple customizations (changing .cshtml files) are now true customizations, making them more complex.
- Customization requires Visual Studio 2022 and the SDK for .NET 1.27 in addition to learning the new .NET 6 platform.
Maintenance Support
Maintenance Support is a period when customers will continue to receive regulatory and severity 1 change request updates (including security fixes). In addition, customers will have access to updates that have previously been provided. This phase begins either when the next release of the product is made generally available or when Ellucian announces that a product version is placed in maintenance support. Product versions will typically remain in this category for a minimum of 6 months. In many cases, additional time will be provided to allow for orderly customer migration and upgrades to current version.
Upgrading
Preparing to upgrade may require careful consideration. With the news of Ellucian sunsetting the previous versions of Self-Service and Web API, institutions should consider upgrading soon or, at the very least, start planning for it. The complexity of the upgrade process revolves around customization. For deployments with no customization, the upgrade is simple and straightforward. However, for deployments with even the smallest amounts of customization, the upgrade will require careful consideration to move to the new .NET 6 environment which entails using Visual Studio 2022, Colleague SDK 1.27 or higher, and becoming familiar with the nuances of .NET 6.
Next Steps
Begin investigating your Self-Service and Web API environment, determine your requirements for customization, and start planning your upgrade today. If you have any questions about your instance of Ellucian Colleague and/or how these, or other, updates may impact your higher education institution, please schedule a call, we can help.